Greencat: My husband says "snap" . He rolled his ankle whilst out running and has torn all the ligaments!

I managed to sprain my ankle a majestic 14 times in eight months when I was in middle school. It took another four years, but I ended up with surgery, as the ligaments had healed but not regained their correct length, and I essentially had worn out rubber bands stabilizing the joint. FUN stuff!

I've had to explain to my professor (primary instrument, also advisor at college, and could be in contact with all the rest of my music professors) why I couldn't come to class. I had a case of the shingles. Across my stomach.

Somewhere at home I have a picture from early on, it was a rash that was probably a foot and a half across my stomach by probably three inches high. And then it started oozing pus and lymphatic fluid. I had to change my gauze pads probably five or six times a day, it was weeping so bad. I couldn't really wear regular pants or shirts and there was no way I'd be able to play french horn, let alone leave my dorm room. I'm glad I've never had to go through THAT again.

Speaking of toilet stories... my spouse's workplace started a "Health at Work" optional program where there were several phases of a new, healthy way of eating. Decided by... not sure who. Anyway, it started with a two-week "cleanse" where the meals were a lot of juice and not much else.

Imagine that for two weeks, about half the population of the office needs to urgently visit the washroom and when they do, it all STINKS TO HIGH HEAVEN.

The company actually bought some special air freshener that you put in the water before you go, and gave it to all participants, which helped a little. A LITTLE.

We had slugs in our garden. It's a small garden, but they were eating our strawberries. We tried the popular "drown them by providing beer" method, but we had smart slugs and it basically turned into us hosting the best slug kegger EVAR.

Finally I resorted to the physical method of protection, we left the beer there to lure the slugs and I grabbed them and tossed them over the fence into the gravel of the back alley (since I was totally grossed out by squishing them).

Until my spouse helpfully pointed out that my neighbour was working on his truck in the back alley.

I either missed him completely or a rain of slugs isn't disturbing to him.

I don‘t know what is causing them to drop dead, but we’ve had two dead birds on our property, in as many weeks.

One got into our walk-up attic somehow, who knows when, as we rarely go up there. It didn’t smell, nor did it seem to be doing much decomp when I cleaned it up, so I think it was recent when we found it by chance of going up to grab something. (Now we just need to figure out the entrance point…)

The other may have been the casualty of the local cat that seems to enjoy sneaking under our porch… the bird was half under the porch (I think it was dragged, and then wouldn’t fit through the gap… it was a large pigeon) and we didn’t realize it was there until it started smelling. Moving it into the trash actually made the smell near the porch worse for a day or two.

That wasn’t the worst part, though: we cleaned it up on a Sunday, putting it into our outdoor trash bin’s bag that would be put out for pickup on Tuesday. Then, life got busy and we didn’t have much trash otherwise, and we forgot to dispose of that bag (which incidentally also holds dog waste). And spring decided to come, finally. Oooooooooh the smell of bird decomp and dog poo soup sitting in a black trash can in direct sunlight for a week. It’s indescribable.

The trash can story just reminded me of one from a couple of weeks ago.

Two points of note: One, we travel, a lot. Hence, sometimes we'll let the trash sit in the big cans for a week, since no one's home to bring the can in. Two, DP has an ostomy, so there's, um, pounds of poo in little sealed bags (which themselves are black opaque heavy plastic) that ends up in our cans on a regular basis.

I threw two bags of trash into one of our (new, no holes for ventilation) black large trash cans on a Friday. We went out of town, I wasn't home again until the next Tuesday, and we missed Monday trash day. One of the bags was kitchen waste (including a couple quarts of strawberries that had ended up being overripe and awful) and the other bathroom stuff (including the aforementioned poo bags). They sat in the can until the next Sunday night, when I went to add another bag to them and drag them to the street. Opening a sealed trash can with poo and rotten strawberries in it, that's been sitting in the hot sun ripening for a week.... I should get hazard pay. I left the lids off them for the trash guys, hoping the smell would dissipate.

My in-laws house is in a area with lakes every few miles. For some reason, the local ospreys and hawks drop turtles and fish on my in-laws house. The turtles can usually survive until we find them and take them to the lake. The fish do not do well outside of the water and dead fish on a dark roof in Florida do not smell nice.

For the turtles, they might think the roof is a nice, hard rock, and think that dropping them is the best "can opener" they can come up with.

Not sure why they'd drop the fish, and not return for them. Perhaps there are major osprey battles up that result in dropping the spoils to, er, spoil?

Logged

My cousin's memoir of love and loneliness while raising a child with multiple disabilities will be out on Amazon soon! Know the Night, by Maria Mutch, has been called "full of hope, light, and companionship for surviving the small hours of the night."

DH has a bad habit. When he's very hungry he eats too fast and too much. A few hours later he'll be in the bathroom retching and heaving.

Last weekend we flew half across country for a family event. After flights, changes, driving 45 min to the hotel, etc. we finally were able to eat. DH scarfed down half a large pizza. Of course a few hours later I hear him go into the bathroom. It was retch, retch, CRASH!

I ran into the bathroom and DH is on the floor, out cold. He cut his head and as heads wound will, it is bleeding all over. I get the bleeding stopped and DH to bed holding a towel to his head. I go to the desk and get a bandage. Fortunately they had a big bandage. Will DH let me bandage his head. NOOOOOO!

It's stopped bleeding and DH insists on sleeping. I'm sitting in the chair making sure he's breathing. DH flips over and opens his head again. Blood everywhere! I get it stopped and bandaged.

Even cleaning things up I make sure to parade DH in front of the hotel staff so they don't think it's a crime scene in the room. I forced him to get it checked. Fortunately no damage done and the wound is healing with no problems.